


The Black Emporium

by accidental



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Drabbles, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-23 00:49:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/616222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accidental/pseuds/accidental
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You never know what you might find in the Black Emporium. </p><p>(Though in this case it's likely to be a series of drabbles and short things originally posted on Tumblr!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What Doesn't Kill You

They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. As if grief and heartache and despair are a trial by ordeal, and you can come out through the flames with thicker skin and a heart hardened to stone.

Hawke knows it’s not true. Each new loss strips away another layer, leaves you raw and bloody. It sensitises you, until even the memory of it is too much to bear.

Once you’ve felt that pain, you live in fear of it for the rest of your life.

Anders knows it too; selfishly pulling Hawke to him when he knows he should be pushing him away. It’s a secret they share, unspoken, as they cling to each other through the dark Kirkwall nights. 

The things that don’t kill you make you weaker, and more afraid.

By the time Anders is all he has left, Hawke knows he will do anything to keep him.

“Help me defend the mages," he says, and Anders looks up at him with something almost like hope in his eyes.


	2. stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU, where Anders doesn't die young.

The years had been neither quiet nor kind, but they had been a blessing, every one of them.

Hawke and Anders had never expected to grow old. “Until the day we die” had been a battle cry, a doomed and angry protest at a fate that would see them torn from each other too soon.

But here they were, in the tiny ramshackle cottage they called home, worn and ragged and slow on their feet, still together against all the odds.

Anders shifted his aching bones against the thin, lumpy mattress and sighed. “I miss our old bed, back in Kirkwall,” he grumbled. “That was a _real_ bed, that was; fine silks and feather pillows, curtains to keep the draught out… It’s the only thing I ever miss about that maker damned place.”

Hawke smiled. He had fond memories of that bed too, remembering their first night together, the glow of the firelight, and the blush on Anders cheeks as Hawke had pulled him down on top of him.

“We almost wore the mattress out,” Anders chuckled. “Had to get it restuffed twice.”

“You and your grey warden stamina…” Hawke smiled tenderly, and leaned over to kiss his lover’s lips. He rested his head against Anders shoulder, one hand reaching up to play with a strand of silvery hair.

“Do you know what I miss?” he said.

“What? My grey warden stamina?”

“Maker no, you’d be the death of me, these days.” Hawke laughed softly. “No, it’s silly I know, but do you remember when we were first on the run, all those nights we slept out under the open skies?” 

“How could I forget?” Anders thought of the mud and the damp grass, nights spent shivering in ditches and abandoned buildings, hungry and in shock, clinging to each other while the world crumbled to dust around them.

“I remember undressing you in the darkness, barely able to see what I was doing, but I knew the feel of you under my hands, the touch of your skin.., and I remember lying you down on the bare ground and loving you, beneath a sky filled with stars.” He pressed his lover’s hair to his lips. “Sometimes I miss that,” he said.

“We could do it again,” Anders said softly, but they both knew they wouldn’t. Hawke’s joints ached, and Anders’ circulation was poor; he felt the cold too easily.

“The memories are enough,” Hawke said. He felt Anders move out from beneath him, pulling himself up into a sitting position. “Close your eyes sweetheart,” he said, and Hawke did as he was told, expecting a kiss or the sudden thrill of a spark from his lovers’ fingers. Instead, he felt the night air shift around him, and the prickling of the Fade against his skin. The hairs on his arms stood up.

“All right,” Anders said. “You can look now.”

Hawke opened his eyes. They lay beneath a canopy of bright stars. Above the bed a hundred tiny fadelights sparked and glimmered, wisps dancing like fireflies, silver and gold.

“Make a wish, love,” Anders whispered. He was outlined in starlight, luminous, still as beautiful as the first time Hawke had set eyes on him. Hawke reached out to touch him, pressed a hand to his lover’s chest, above his heart, and the touch echoed through him, stirring the memories that slept beneath his skin. He pulled Anders down on top of him, as he had that first night.

There was nothing more to wish for. He didn’t miss the silks and brocades, the feather mattress, the hard muscles and soft skin of youth. They had so much more now. They had the years of memories, all of them more tender as they grew more distant.

They still had each other.

Hawke kissed his Anders again beneath the stars.

They had more than they’d ever dreamed of.


End file.
